10 Year WAR

I don’t know how to even start. I could say that it’s been almost 10 years since Brian died. That would be factual, but not even close to accurate. Brian has died for me every single day, without fail, since that day. Every day I wake up and I lose him again. It’s the most horrible version of Groundhog’s Day. Time does not exist for me anymore. Time stopped at 9pm on Sunday November 25, 2012. I found out that Brian died … and I died, too.

That is not some exaggeration. I did die. My body and my mind and my voice have continued to function, but it’s just been going on autopilot. I have not been present for 10 years. I’m walking and talking and working and creating and evening loving, but there is no living once you die. I’ve spent 10 years waiting for my body to catch up and just die along with my soul. A very dangerous nearly fatal bout with sepsis almost accomplished that goal, but 4 years later I am still waking up, still breathing, still moving and grooving and still faking it all.

In 10 years, I have had some wonderful, very real experiences. I will never say that the connections I experienced were fake or insignificant because they most certainly were not. I did indeed laugh. I did indeed love. I did indeed learn. The circle around me has grown wider and stronger and more brilliant and beautiful. I have been so blessed to have had unbelievable experiences (who lives this life?) and I am not at all ignorant enough to believe that everyone gets those experiences and I am not numb enough to miss the magic of it all. I have seen glorious things, felt powerful love, watched my children grow into humans far better than I could ever be. I have loved and felt the love another … as much as I am able. I do not think that I am able to feel anything pure and full. I have built such a solid steel wall around myself and my heart and my mind because, honestly, it’s the only way I can breathe in and out. I live in a prison of my own making and it has kept me safe and moving and giving the illusion of life.

Illusion. It’s only an illusion.

PTSD is the most fucked up thing. It is time traveling through nightmares. It is being in one place and time and then suddenly being right back in 2012. I don’t mean that I just feel like I am back there. I mean that my eyes stop seeing what is in front of me and instead they see motherfucking ignorant asshole police officers standing in front of me bungling in an almost criminal way telling me that my husband is dead and refusing to answer any questions. I am seeing the snowy creek bed with burned limbs and bloody rocks and charred flesh. I smell the frozen blood found under rocks. I am running my hands through cremains. I am telling my children that their father will never come home. I am telling Brian’s family that their son is dead. I am laying naked zipped up inside his body bag. I am frantically calling Brian to try to find him. I am finding hidden bottles. I am wearing his underwear to be close to him. I am standing barefoot in the snow in the middle of the night crying and begging the moon to come back to life. I am living the very worst horror there is to live. Over and over and over and over again. I am smelling the burned clothing, tasting the bitter tang of death. All the while, my co-workers keep answering the phone, my vehicle keeps flying down the highway, the dogs keep going in and out, the coffee keeps brewing, the meals are made and bills are paid and I am still laying there, face down in a puddle of flesh and blood and rocks and ice and snow until the next day when I do it all over again.

I wrote this morning and posted it on social media:

So here’s the thing about PTSD:

It can fuck ALLLLLLLLLLL the way off.
But it won’t.
It won’t budge. 
It’ll hide, for awhile, like a 2 year old playing hide and seek by standing with a towel over its head. 
It’ll slink around sometimes, like a cat largely ignoring you until it DEMANDS that you attend to it before it shits in your shoe. 
And it will also latch onto you like a superglue-covered starving rage filled bear, fresh out of hybernation, that adheres itself to you with a permanent adhesive before it claws and bites and tears and eviscerates you, devouring every last cell, only to regurgitate you back up so it can do it again and again and again. 

It is personal and vindictive and holds a doctorate in gaslighting. 
Like a sadist, it takes you to the point of death repeatedly but never finishes the journey, making it all that more cruel when you realize you are breathing again because just fucking stop or finish the goddamn job. 
But it won’t. 
It never will.
It thrives in those moments of keeping you neither alive nor dead and this is where you will stay forever. 
It wants you to stop fighting.
It wants you to go under.
It wants you to lose every bit of joy, pin-prick of hope, every single tiny speck of light. 
And you do. 
Because it wins.
It will always win. 
And you can never stop playing the game.

I am not religious at all, but this has to be purgatory. Purgatory, not Hell. Not Hell, because Hell is where a person ends when it is over.

This is not over. A new battle has just begun.

Perfect

They sit in his man cave, the room that has been his for over 11 years.  Beer and bud flow smoothly between them and the music plays as they look at each other, but words are nil, until she speaks up.

“Goddamn it, what is this place?  Look at it!”

She mentions the clutter, calls it out piece by piece.

“I see 5 pair of boots here.  What is up with the broken radio controlled truck? Do you really need that broken down scooter?  It’s been here for 5 years!  Why do you have 11 curvy rum bottles?  What do you plan to do with the 3 broken blenders?  Do you really need 6 tackle boxes?

He doesn’t say a word.

Well, the first days are the hardest days.

She looks around again.  Takes it all in.

“Do you know that, at one swift glance, I see 3 very expensive hats in here? 8 outrageously priced fishing poles?  2 space heaters? $2000 worth of framing equipment that hasn’t been used in years?  An untouched table saw?”

Again, he says nothing.

What I want to know, is are you kind?

“Those paint cans have been here since we bought this house 11 years ago.  WHY are they still here?”

She looks up and sees the crates he has suspended from the ceiling.  She has no idea what in the world he has stored up there.

“Baby, honestly, you have 3 strobe lights in here.  We’ve never used them once.  I thought I told you to recycle those pots and pans?  Do you REALLY need 8 radio speakers?

You know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice.  Will you come with me?  Won’t you come with me? 

“The air cannon I get, baby, I really do.  But do you honestly need to keep all the parts you discarded after you built it?  WHY ARE YOUR DIRTY SOCKS STILL ON THE FLOOR?”

He’s silent, letting her rant away.

“I know, darling, that WD-40 is the answer to everything that duct tape is not, but do you really need 12 cans?   Why are there 11 plastic shot cups?  And did you REALLY dig those bottles of my nail polish out of the trash to paint your fishing lures?  REALLY?”

Their motto is, “Don’t tread on me.” 

“I see your drafting kit.  Those pens are 20+ years old.  Yes, I know they still work.  Yes, I know they matter, but can’t you put them in a drawer?  And what about the oil filters and bottles of antifreeze and the 3 weedeaters and SERIOUSLY???  You honestly NEED 3 boxes of steel wool?”

Again, he utters not a word.

Come with me or go alone…

“Sweetheart, I love you.  I respect that you have a need for everything, but truly? We live in tornado alley.  That work bench could kill an entire city.  42 open containers of nuts, bolts, screws, and nails, NOT TO MENTION the 5 open faced tool boxes and the 200lb steel Craftsman box.   Baby, this is a death trap!”

She looks at him.  She pleads with him.  She begs him to give her an answer.

Not a word does she hear.

Ain’t no time to hate.  Barely time to wait. 

She looks at him and she softens.  The love for him overwhelms her and suddenly things disappear.  She stands before him and slowly reaches out to touch him.

First is the box that holds the steel bottle of cheap vodka and water, the last thing to touch his lips.  And his phone, the last contact he had with her, now crushed, burned and ruined.

She kisses them both.

Whoa, what I want to know, is where does the time go?

She reaches down and puts her hands into him.  This part of him, in the second box, is in paint cans.  The remains of his clothes, the steel toes of his boots, the pockets of his insulated jeans.  Once upon a time, she used to put her hands in these same pockets to playfully grab his ass.

I can hear your voice. Oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?

She moves her hands down further.  There is his wallet. Three hundred and 2 ruined dollars.  Burned credit cards.  A singed fishing license.  A picture of her, burned so that only her eyes show.  His license to drive, leather seared onto the edges.  A stocking cap.  A pack of smokes.  A lighter.  2 quarters. 3 grocery store receipts.  An ashy paycheck.

“Oh, my love,” she says, ” I don’t give a shit about the clutter.  I love you endlessly, regardless of anything else.  As long as we’re together, we’re okay.”

Come on along or go alone, he’s come to take his children home.

And she slowly stands and takes off her clothes and opens the last box. She removes the heavy black parcel and opens it up once again.  And then, as the song ends, she zips up the body bag to her shoulders to lay with him one more time.

Come hear Uncle John’s band by the river side.  Got some things to talk about here beside the rising tide. 

The waves wash over her and carry her to a new shore. She loves him more than ever. She gets up.  Puts him back in his boxes, his new home, and turns the light off, leaving the clutter untouched.

It’s perfect.

Soul Searching, Shopping, and Shit-Kickers

It’s been 4 months now since Brian died.  Last night, around 9pm (the exact time the cops showed up to tell me Brian was dead on a Sunday night in November,) my dogs went apeshit crazy.  They started jumping and growling and barking at the window and the front door.  The smallest of my dogs weighs 87 lbs, so you can imagine the chaos.  I immediately started to panic.  9pm on every Sunday is the worst time of my week because that was the time my whole world crashed and burned.  heh.  Anyway, so last night the dogs were having a blitz attack at the window and I tentatively peeked out the window to find a person in the dark walking toward my house with a flashlight.  I’m not going to lie: I had a full on panic attack and pissed my pants right there in the living room.  The logical part of me didn’t kick in, the part that knows that no one can possibly hurt me ever again the way I was hurt that night.  All I knew was that it was Sunday, it was 9pm, and someone was walking to my house in the dark.  As it turns out, it was just someone looking for their dog who had run off, but for a moment I was back in the endless dark.

While it was a very traumatic experience for me (one that I hope I don’t have to repeat,) it made me realize something: I have come a long way, baby.  It used to be that I was constantly in that place of darkness and terror every second of every day.  It used to be that ANYONE coming to my house made me want to grab my shotgun and set the dogs loose.  It used to be that I used to want to lay down and die all the time.  Now it’s just some of the time.  Big stuff.

My kids were gone all weekend.  I had a lot of time alone in the house.  That used to cause me to panic, but not this past weekend.  I found that I was okay.  I felt Brian more clearly.  I was able to rest and be and just  … be okay.  Not great, mind you, but okay.  I admit that I spent some of my time this past weekend, as I do many days, escaping into a mental fantasy world where I travel with a band, staying up late and living a wild and free life.  I used to visit that fantasy land to get away from the doldrums of being a primarily SAHM (I’m telling you, I can only handle so much of Sponge Bob and Bionicles and tighty whities) but now I escape to it because when the music hits, you feel no pain.  In that fantasy world, it is okay to shut down, to rock on, to be outrageous.  It’s okay to imagine crazy, wild irresponsibility, it’s okay to “get stoned in the morning, get drunk in the afternoon.”  It’s okay to imagine, it’s okay to fantasize, but it’s not the way I’m living.  It’s not real life.  Escape is temporary.  If I’m going to survive, I have to be real (most of the time.)

Brian is never coming home.  Brian will never walk through that door.  I will never feel his touch in the same way on my skin, I will never experience his laughter in the same way, and I will never again stride up to the stage at a concert and know he’s behind me watching me work my super power.  4 months in and reality is hitting and hitting hard.  That fantasy life, the life that was REAL life for 14 years, is over as I know it and I am still here.

I am still here.

I filed our taxes last week.  While doing taxes is hard every year, this year was hardest because I had to put down on a federal form that Brian died in 2012.  Ugh.  We have always managed our taxes in a way that allows us to get a big refund each year (there are perks to living paycheck to paycheck,) and just like Ma and Pa did for Laura and Mary in Little House on the Prairie, we use this refund to get new clothes and shoes for the entire family.  The same will happen this year.  Elvis knows we all need new clothes.  My friend took me shopping a few days ago and mentioned that I could be “43 weeks pregnant with twins” and still fit into Brian’s overalls I have been wearing like a second skin.  My own clothes are too big.  His clothes are too big (if you knew him, you know that’s saying a LOT.)  I need new clothes.  We went shopping and, because Brian taught me to manage money well (read: I’m tighter than bark on a tree,) I hit the clearance racks.  Who pays full price?  Anyway, something BIG happened to me at those racks:  I realized that I really don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks anymore.  Really.  I mean, I do, but it’s out of curiosity, not out of concern.  I walked out of that store with 3 semi-backless tops and not one, but TWO pair of snakeskin print skin-tight pants. HUZZAH! I wore those snakeskin pants to a dinner party recently and they were the topic of many comments by one particular guest, but WHO CARES?  They are comfortable and they make my ass look great.  All snakeskin print, all the time, I say! And, really, they were $8 and they fit.

$8.  HA.  That reminds me of Brian.  I was forever telling him exactly how much I spent on every little thing I brought into the house.  He hated it.  “Sarah, I know you’re not going to go hog wild!  I know you’re responsible with money.  WHY DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE TO JUSTIFY EVERY PURCHASE?  STOP IT!  I’m not your father, babe.  You have the okay from me, but fuck it all, YOU DO NOT NEED MY OKAY!”  It’s true.  Every red cent I spent was documented and reported, not because he wanted or needed me to, but because I felt like I should.  I remember him telling me one day,  “Baby, we’re doing okay.  You don’t have to buy store brand tampons.  It’s really okay to get the good stuff.”  Top shelf booze, bottom of the barrel hygiene! Oh Brian, how I miss your clarity!

I’ve been tackling Mount St. Laundry today.  Load after load after load. Putting it away is the hardest part for me.  I wear my clothes and Brian’s clothes equally.  I used to give him shit for the milk crates of socks and shirts he had on his side of the bed.  “Why don’t you put that stuff away?”  He always responded, “because I don’t have room!”  Truthfully, if he had gotten rid of all the stuff he had but never wore, he’d have plenty of room for his stuff, but he never did and, now, I can’t either.  For the last 4 months, I have been putting his stuff back in the milk crates.  Today, for the first time, I started putting some of his things in my drawers and in my section of the closet.  Seems simple, feels HUGE.

Brian would wear his clothes until they literally fell off his body.  His t-shirts and jeans are riddled with holes, but he wore them until they were in tatters. “Sarah, the holes are made by my keys and my pocket knife.  New jeans are going to get the same holes, so why bother?”  Ah, the man mind!  Brian never bought himself new clothes.  He would spend his money on 3 items of apparel: socks, underwear, and boots.  I can appreciate that now.  I wear his socks and his underwear all the time.  Think that’s strange?  Let me tell you, mens boxer briefs are a lot warmer in the snow than my usual yoga thongs.  Anyway, he would buy himself new boots once or twice a year and he never skimped on them.  After years of trying, he found a pair of Wolverine work boots that were perfect for him and he routinely went back to buy that same pair over and over and over again.  There are currently 4 pair in the “garage.”  I long so desperately to wear them, but his feet were twice the size of mine.

I LOVE shoes.  My feet haven’t changed size since 5th grade, so I don’t outgrow anything and I dress funkily enough that I’m not concerned about what’s “in” (as evidenced by the snakeskin print pants.)   At one point, as a senior in high school, I had 98 pair of shoes. I have since scaled back, but do have a closet full. As a yoga teacher, I don’t need work shoes.  My work clothes budget doesn’t include footwear.  I am like Brian: I don’t spend much on myself, but when it’s something I’m going to be wearing for hours at a time (say, at a concert festival,) what I buy needs to be high quality and I have to love them.  Enter the Shit-Kickers.  I love boots. OH, how I love boots.  My shopping friend and I were talking about boots and how many pair we have and I said, “I think I have 7 pair.”  I wildly underestimated, DeeDee.  I just did the count.  I currently have 13 pair of boots.   Some tall, some short, some work boots, some dress boots, some snow boots, mostly cowboy boots (aka shit-kickers.)  What I DO NOT have, however, is a pair of badass black boots.  For my 36th birthday last year, Brian gave me a gorgeous pair of brown cowboy boots with turquoise stitched hearts on them.  They are amazing!  My birthday is coming up in a few weeks and, being the good Little House girl that I am, I realized I needed a pair of boots for this season.  I found the PERFECT pair and they are my one big splurge on myself for an entire year.  They arrive in a couple of weeks.  They’re Stetsons, which I think would make Brian smile: he was almost never without his identifying Stetson hat.

Clothes.  Laundry.  Boots.  Buying these things and doing these things says something incredible to me: I am moving forward.  I am planning for a life beyond right this moment.  I am going to make it.  While I might not consciously be aware of it at all times, the wheels are turning below the surface and I am starting to live.

Just don’t show up at my house unannounced after dark, because if my dogs don’t get you, my boots sure as shit will.

 

 

Seasons Change

It’s the first day of Spring, although you wouldn’t know it here.  It’s freaking cold and windy, but at least the sun is out.  As is the moon.  I love days where I can see both mid-day.

I haven’t written in a long time.  So much has been going on and I just didn’t know how to find the words.  Brian died late in the Fall.  It is now Spring.  I have made it through an entire season.  Unimaginable.  While the world goes through it’s seasons, I have been turning my own.  It has been almost 4 months (impossible,) and while people say that things get better with time, it’s almost harder now than ever.  Much of the shock has worn off.  Now it’s just daily life and the understanding that daily life sucks ass without Brian.  This is the time of year that was the best for us.  Things come alive and we started to run like wild children in the wind.  OH how we played! Now the playground seems all rusted and full of sharp edges and my legs have forgotten how or where to go.

I don’t even know what Spring looks like without him by my side.  So much needs to be done.  Last week I chopped off a 100lb tree limb that broke off during the snow and ice storm a month ago.  I pounded stakes through the fence and into the ground to deter Zeus from escaping.  I have fixed plumbing and electrical issues and have pulled weeds and checked gutters and made arrangements for car maintenance.  I have almost caught up with the laundry for the first time since Brian died.  I have changed the sheets, I have spent time in the sun, I have grilled steaks.  And all of it, ALL of it, is empty because there is someone missing.

Photo by Anastasia Pottinger Photography

I have also done really hard things, important things.  I have now gotten almost all of Brian’s property back from the state.  I have gone through almost all of it.  I got his wallet and his driver license this past Monday, his 39th birthday.  I have taken his mother to the place where he died.  Sunday, I will take his brother.  I have taken our children.  I have taken myself.

Some days are much harder than others.  There are days when I barely do anything at all except watch countless episodes of Law & Order: SVU on Netflix all day.  People ask me why I do this.  I do it because, for 42 minutes at a time, I can escape and live in a world where police aren’t incompetent, where investigations are taken seriously, where there is always a big strong guy to get the truth out of the bad dudes (I will stop watching when I hit the season where Stabler leaves.)  I watch it because it doesn’t always turn out pretty, the good guys don’t always win, and I watch it because I relate so much to the victims in these stories.  No, I am not suffering the trauma of sexual abuse, but I do feel like I have been violated by this entire event and process and I want Benson and Stabler to put the whole damn thing back together again.  And I want to see Christopher Meloni take his shirt off.  Come on, I’m still human!

There are also days when I get myself up, dust myself off, and get shit done.  TCB Sarah comes out and kicks ass.  Those days are highly productive, but I’m not foolish enough to see them as days of healing.  I see them for exactly what they are: days of escaping and coping in a different way.  Go go go, run run run, do do do.

It doesn’t matter.  I still go to bed alone every night, regardless of my daily actions.

When Brian and I got married, we were Ramen Noodle poor.  We didn’t have two dimes to rub together, but we had an abundance of love.  We were the richest people in the world.  Our rings cost less than $175 combined.  About a year ago, Brian told me that he wanted to get me a diamond solitaire, an actual engagement ring.  I believed he was going to give it to me for Christmas or for our anniversary.  He was going to use a diamond that his mother had given him – a beautiful marquis cut stone.  He died before he could get it made.  Brian’s mother never forgot the conversations he had with her about using that stone, however, and so a few weeks ago we met with Brian’s personal jeweler and, as I sit here typing this, I am wearing the engagement ring Brian had in mind.  12 years after we married, almost 4 months after he died.  It’s stunningly beautiful, but there is a part of me that looks at it with pain in my heart because he wasn’t here to put it on my finger.

Concert season is approaching.  I bought tickets to the MoonRunners Festival on November first.  We were supposed to go together and have a weekend in Chicago.  My heart breaks to think of a concert without him.  I am blessed with the best girlfriends in the world and I will be going with 2 of them and it will be a wonderful weekend, but it will be my first show since Brian died and I will find myself looking for his hat in the crowd.  I have three more concerts lined up and then it’s more festivals.  How will I do this when I’m not even sure how the sun will rise?

I wake up every day.  I go to bed every day.  I do what is needed to be done and I carry on, but most of the time I have no idea what day it is.  I just get up and go through.  It is a new season.  The season of painful change.

Photo by Shea McJagger

Unremarkable Intimacy

Oh dear lord, this post is going to require just the right music…. wait here while I find it.   Okayyyyyyy “Workingman’s Dead” it is.  It was Brian’s favorite Grateful Dead album.  While I love most of them, “American Beauty” is my favorite.  That said, Brian was a working man.  Brian is dead.  (Jesus Christ, who the fuck is this Brian we keep talking about who is dead?  Surely not MY Brian!?!)

Moving on…

I hate the mail.  I hate it.  I just never know what will arrive.  Sometimes it is wonderful and lovely notes and occasionally contributions to theBrian Kohl Family Memorial Relief Fund, and I love those days so much because, even after 3 months, I still need loving arms around me at all times.  Other times, however, it’s bullshit that makes me want to punch out windows and bash heads through walls.  I still get obituaries in the mail (unsolicited,) last week I got an offer for Life Insurance on Brian 3 months after he died without any, and almost every day I get something from Cabella’s, Bass Pro, Harbor Freight, North American Fishing Association,  and other random flotsam and jetsam.   Yesterday, the mail brought me a Missouri Conservation magazine, a Bass Pro flier, a Menard’s ad, and a large manilla envelope from the Medical Examiner’s Office.

I requested the final report from the M.E.  I wanted the autopsy report, the toxicology report, I wanted it all.  On December 26th, at 3pm, I spoke to the woman who cut my husband up and looked at parts of him that no other human had ever seen.  I requested the report, told her I wanted everything but pictures.  I wasn’t sure if I would read it when I got it, but I have learned how this process works and, unfortunately, I know how slow and convoluted it is.  If I didn’t request it immediately, I’d never get it.  As it was, it took more than 2 months after the request for me to get the report.  It showed up innocuously in my mailbox and, before I could think too hard about it, I closed myself off in Brian’s man-cave, Shakedown Street, and tore it open.

7 pages.  Type face, signatures, dates, case numbers.  “Brian D. Kohl, Age 38 years”  on each and every one.

BRIAN WHO?!?!?!?

In 2000, our first son was born.  He was in what is called an “acynclitic position” and was unable to be born vaginally, so he was born via cesarean section.  Brian was right there with me the entire time.  In the years since that surgery, Brian would often remark to me that he saw a part of me that I would never ever see.  You must understand, in a c-section, the surgeon pulls the uterus completely out of the body and lays it upon the mother’s abdomen to inspect it for tears and other abnormalities.  Brian saw the whole thing.   While it sounds strange, there was an incredible intimacy in that.  He saw my womb, he saw my insides, he saw things I’ll never see… and it made us closer. I often wondered if I would ever have that experience.  Would I ever know or see more of him than he ever would?

I got my answer yesterday with one hasty tear of a manilla envelope.

I know now more than any one else will ever know.  I read the contents and immediately vomited.  It’s so hard to read the details of your soul mate, your beloved, your entire everything reduced down to measurements and weights.  It’s hard to read words like “remains of brown hair,” “singed eyebrows,” “xx% burned and sloughing skin.”   I will never share those details with anyone.  Ever.  I know how much his heart weighed and what exact color it was and whether it was dull or glossy and full.  I know everything about his liver, his lungs, his intestines, his spleen.  I know how much his brain weighed.  I know the extent of facial hair he had, I know the condition of his palms and the soles of his feet.  I know it all.  I know it all.  I know it all.

Brian was a HUGE believer of evolution (honestly, how can you not be?)   Anyway, physicians have been saying for some time that more and more people are being born without an appendix.  I believe in evolution completely, just like Brian.  Imagine the smile – the ONLY smile – that crossed my face as I read the report and learned that Brian had been born WITHOUT AN APPENDIX.  As of this writing, the statistics say that 1 in 100,000 people are born without one.  Brian was born in 1974.  As always, that amazing man was ahead of the evolutionary curve.

7 pages of text and, other than the appendix deal, there is one other thing that sticks out to me that I will discuss.  Repeatedly, organ system by organ system, the words, “unremarkable” are repeated.  “Larger and smaller intestines are unremarkable.”  “Soot present in nasal passages, otherwise unremarkable.” “Bone structure and health absolutely unremarkable.”   Let me tell you, there was NOTHING about Brian that was unremarkable.  I know that they have to use those words, I get it, but it made me laugh and flip the bird.  Many of you knew Brian.  Let me ask you – was anything about him unremarkable?  Yeah, I thought not.  Yet, unremarkable it is.

After the two hours of vomiting and emotional distress, some peace came to me.  I felt closer to Brian last night than I have in a long time.  I realized that, just as he saw a part of me that I never will see, I have seen parts of him that he never saw.  It felt like I was baring witness to him, like I was relieving him of the weight of carrying it all on his own.  I know.  I know, Brian, I know, and you can lessen your load now. I will carry it with you.

After several hours of trying to hold it together, I took a hot bath, told my kids goodnight, and climbed into bed myself.

I asked him to come to me last night as I fell asleep.  He has never failed to come to me when I have the clarity to ask.  He came to me in a way that he usually comes.  The dreams are very similar.  We are rushed with each other, passionate, all hands and tongues and body parts and sweat and love.  Usually it is because we’re “not supposed” to be together in that way.  Either there is a kid in the next room waiting to barge in, or we’re at a party, or we’re in public.  It’s always heated and quick and it’s always like we’re getting away with something.  And it’s always sooooo real.  I wake up with the taste of him on my tongue.  I think we are getting away with something.  I think, in those moments, we are both crossing the veil and finding a way to reach each other and make love.  Deeply personal, deeply intimate.

I woke this morning to find my exfoliating gloves in the middle of the bathtub.  I had thrown them in the sink last night when I took my bath and thought nothing of just throwing them in the tub when I got out.  I looked at them and gasped.  Another “unremarkable” intimacy.  Look at these gloves. They are UNTOUCHED – this is how they landed when I threw them into the tub.  The glove on the right is the ASL sign for “I Love You.”  The glove on the left is the hand sign the boys invented to signal Brian.  They just landed like that.

To anyone else, unremarkable.  To me, incredibly intimate.

Love never dies.

 

 

Walking Through

Every day for the last 6 weeks, I have woken up with that song in my head.  I’m not sure if it’s a song about Brian, about me, or a song about us, but it’s been there relentlessly, so I figured I should do something with it.  I don’t know who made the video, but I’m trying to forgive them for the horrid font they used at the beginning.  ugh.

Moving on.

2 months ago today, Brian left to go camping and never returned.  While the death certificate states that he died November 25, I know in my heart he died 2 months ago tonight.  I know that because I knew Brian better than anyone and I knew his routine.  He was meticulous when camping.  When I arrived at the site 2 days after his death, I could tell immediately what he had done and not gotten around to doing yet.  He died quickly upon arrival.  He died on the 24th.  That said, the officials have to go on what they can prove and they can prove he was found on the 25th, so there it is.  Another wrong “fact.”  Does it even matter?  It matters to me, but I know the truth and that’s going to have to be good enough.  Just another walk through the motions.

When I was in Costa Rica, I took a walk down to the river.  It was mid-day and I was alone, or so I thought.  I was walking through the jungle path looking at the river hiding through the trees and suddenly I felt like I had just walked through something.  No, I felt like I walked through someone.  I felt like I had walked right through Brian.  I know that’s a very strange thing to grasp if you’ve never felt it, but I swear one step I was just me, the next step I was us, the next step I was me again.  You bet your ass I backed up a step and, sure enough, there he was.  Standing with me, me standing with him, me standing in him.  I could have lived in that moment, in that tiny footprint forever. It wasn’t like I could smell him or see him, but my heart recognized his and he was there.  Just like how I would be in deep sleep and still know when he came to bed, I knew, I KNEW I walked walked right through my world and into his.

Sometimes Brian walks through his world and into mine.  I have written before about how he visits me sometimes while I’m in bed, in the moments before sleep or just in those fuzzy moments before fully waking.  He’s been walking through to me more often.  Now it comes with some sound, too.  It’s still the warmth, the weight, but now it’s also the sound of not just his heartbeat, but a rushing sound in my ears – just like him breathing into my ears as his soft, bearded face rests upon mine.  Odd, though, that it doesn’t really feel like a beard.  It feels more like ..what?  Breath?  Grace?  Something.  And the other night, he kissed me.  I would bet my entire life and all that is in it that he kissed me.  My lips tingled out of nowhere.  He was laying with me, breathing with me, and then …kiss.

We are living behind this veil, he and I.  We are neither of this world or the next.  We are dancing across the lines.  He walks through.  I walk through.  Somehow we always walk the right direction and find each other.

Our children see him.  The other day, our youngest son got quiet and started to cry and smile at the same time.  I asked him what was going on and he whispered, “Mom, Dad is standing right by your left side.  Right now.  He’s right there.”  I almost peed my pants.  I felt him, too.

Here’s the thing:  I can get all caught up in my own grief and pain and loneliness and agony and feelings of injustice and anger that I forget I’m not (and my kids are not) the only one going through this.  Brian never wanted to leave.  This was not his plan.  This was not what was supposed to happen.  He got cheated, too.  He doesn’t have a fucking clue what happened and he’s pissed.  As much as I long for him to wrap his arms around me, he longs just as much to hold me.  As much as my kids want to play with him, it’s agony to him that he can’t wrestle with them.  He is sad and grieving, too.  He is trying like hell, as I am, to find the non-existant rewind button.  Here’s another thing: no one on this entire planet could make Brian do a damn thing he didn’t want to do.  Ever.  Period.  While this drove me insane for quite some time, it brings me wonderful comfort now.  He didn’t want to leave and circumstances might have made his body leave us, but nothing NOTHING can make HIM leave us.  He’s right here.  He’s here now.  He’ll always be here.

The trick is to just find evidence of that in new ways.

Yesterday my garbage disposal backed up.  INTO MY BATHTUB.  Yeah.  Gross, right?  We live in an old house with entirely too many screwed up issues.  When he put the garbage disposal in several years ago, it was a nightmare getting it all hooked up to the plumbing, but he did it and it has been amazing. Yes, occasionally it would back up into the sink and he would have to gut the whole thing and get it cleared out, but never once did it back up into the bathtub.  No, that little pleasure was left for me.  But you know what?  I fixed it.  I called Mom over so she could take a peek and go grab some liquid plumbr, but I completely disassembled all of the plumbing under the sink, cleared it out, put it back together, and fixed the damn problem.  Let me tell you, this is not your average plumbing hookup.  It’s all kinds of rednecked up, but I did it.   I walked through sludge and came out clean as a whistle.  I didn’t do it alone. Yes, my mom was there, but so was my own personal MacGuyver.  Brian walked me through.

There is a huge piece of the puzzle missing. I’m not sure what it is or where I will find it, but Brian keeps giving me clear messages that it’s out there and that he means for me to find it.  He doesn’t know what happened.  He has appeared to many people and told them each that he has no clue.  He has told me he’s confused because he doesn’t know.  It’s my job to be his hands and eyes and feet and it’s my job to walk him through and find answers for him.  It’s my goal and I won’t give up, regardless of how long it takes, how dirty or bloody I have to get.  I will find it.  I will walk him through.

We used to walk through this life hand in hand.  Now we are walking through heart in heart.  But we’re still walking.  We’re going to make it.

We’re still walking through.

I Want to Remember it All

It’s the last day of 2012.  Everyone who has a blog or a website is doing a recap of the year.  The goods, the bads, the whole nine yards.  I won’t be doing that.  I just can’t.   2012 was, up until Thanksgiving weekend, one of the best years of my life.  With one conversation, my entire life and my entire future fell apart.

There was never supposed to be a Sarah without Brian.  Moving forward not only seems impossible, it seems wrong.  It seems against nature.  It also seems inevitable.

Yet again something over which I had / have no choice.

There has been a shift in this process.  Brian and I are transitioning into a new relationship and I am terrified.  I am scared of not feeling the pain.  I am scared of healing even the tiniest bit.  I’m scared of what I know, even if it is the deepest level of hell, changing and being plunged yet again into the terrifying unknown.  People tell me that healing doesn’t mean that I love him any less or that he loves me any less.  People tell me that living my life doesn’t mean that he’s going to leave me.  People tell me people tell me people tell me.  Intellectually I know they are probably right.  Intellect has no role in grief.

Brian and I weren’t perfect.  We were human and thus flawed.  We were, however, the closest thing to a perfect partnership that I have ever known.  I know he will never leave me, I just have to adjust my expectations of what being with him looks like now.  Does he whisper to me now?  Does he show up in the white tailed deer that run through the woods, almost out of sight?  When I’m awash with memories so strong I feel like I’m experiencing it, are they memories or is it really him being right there?  When I remember the few painful times of our marriage, is it guilt or grief or forgiveness? Is he putting them there so I can forgive myself?  When I remember the never ending list of joyful moments, is he there with me?  Is he putting these memories in my head so that, for brief moments, we can love each other together again?

I don’t know.  I don’t know.  So many things I don’t know.  For someone who has spent the majority of her life, at least her adult life, being confident and sure and steady, this unending blanket of uncertainty offers no comfort or warmth.  Like new shoes that I’m not terribly fond of, I would rather throw it away than break it in.

Again, no choice.  Again, no answers.

What if I forget?  What if I forget the sound of his soft, deep voice?  The feel of his hands?  The soft spot behind his ear?  How the beard swirled on one cheek and how he had a handful of long white hairs on the other?  What if I forget which cheek was which?  What if I forget how we fought and made up?  What if I forget something for which I need to say I’m sorry?  What if I forget something I need to tell him that I adore about him?  What if I forget the way he smelled?  What if I forget?  This brings me to my knees in utter panic and terror.

And yet again, I have no choice. Someone came uninvited.  They’re leaving.  I’m scared they’re taking The Belle of the Ball.

“I’ll never forget you.  I love you in spite of your faults.  The good and the bad, I want to remember it all.” ~Waylon Jennings